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Dry Bones

A Legacy Of Evil

G

od will judge Yasser Arafat's soul; history can
only judge his deeds. He will have to hope
that God is kind because his deeds condemn
him. Given the special opportunity to create a future
for the 6 million Palestinians whom he said he loved,
the Palestinian Authority president lingered in the past,
stewing in hate and fixated on revenge.
He will be recalled in part as one who called the
world's attention to the plight of a stateless people, and
his memorials will celebrate his 1994 Nobel Peace
Prize. But he will be remembered more for the doc-
trine of terrorism that he embraced. What will last will
be the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in
Munich, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, launching
the intifada of 2000 that has killed more
than 1,100 Israelis and three times that
number of Palestinians.
Under his watch, it became okay for ter-
rorists to slay unarmed Jewish settlers in the West
Bank, for Palestinian women to put on the suicide
bomb vests, for children to be indoctrinated in the
loathsome beliefs of martyrdom as an end in itself.
Four years ago, he was the one who approved releasing
from prison several hundred convicted terrorists who
became core organizers of the violence against Israelis.
He was the one who paid for 50,000 tons of weapons
to be smuggled aboard the ship Karine A, which Israel
fortunately intercepted.
Arafat said he wanted a Palestinian nation; but when
it was offered to him at Camp David, he rejected it.
For him, it was either all of the Palestine of the British
Mandate at the end of World War I or it was nothing.
He got nothing.
He never understood the lessons of real leaders like
Mahatma Ghandi or Nelson Mandela about how a

nation could be established by peaceful protest
and consolidated through reconciliation rather
than revenge. Like Theodor Herzl, Arafat
could envision a flourishing Palestinian state in
a land to which it had historical ties. But he
didn't even understand what David Ben-
Gurion had accomplished by accepting the
1948 partition.
Even the Arab nations do not universally
praise him. The Jordanians remember his
failed efforts in 1970 to seize control from
King Hussein — a strategy that led to the
deaths at least 2,000 Palestinians then living in
Jordan. The Lebanese similarly saw him and
his guerrillas foment a civil war that
led to the Israeli invasion and
Arafat's exile to Tunis.
Two years ago, with Israeli troops
surrounding his two rooms in Ramallah, he
cried out "Oh, God, grant me a martyr's
death." It was a typical preference for violence.
He was not able to see a future that was not
written in blood and pain.
Ultimately, he failed in most of his goals.
He did not destroy Israel, his chief aim before
the first Gulf War in 1991 left his movement
bankrupt; and he did not achieve the peace
with the Jewish state that he then said he was
pursuing. He could not give Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza a decent, democratic
government — he gave them tyranny and corruption
instead — much less the nationhood he said they
deserved.
Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister from
1977 to 1982, got it right when he discussed how

THE SEARCH
FOR ARAFAT'S
whom IS IN
FULL SWING!

EDITORIAL

The Missing Parents

W

hen Kenneth Burnley took over as chief
executive of the Detroit Public Schools, he
said that one of his biggest priorities was
getting parents involved in the learning process.
Burnley, who was a year or two behind me at
Mumford High, told me that had to happen if the
city's schools were ever to improve.
Unfortunately, he was right.
Ask any teacher who works in Detroit about the
number of parents who show up at conferences or
respond to notes that are sent home with the students
or assume any kind of role in education.
It is absolutely the most discouraging thing about
teaching in the city. Dedicated teachers can always
buy supplies out of their own pockets. They can deal
with a deteriorating physical plant. But the parents
who are missing in action is a gap that cannot be
filled. Nothing can take the place of direct contact.
Detroit voters recently decided to go back to an
elected school board, which is probably not good
news for Burnley. But administrative structure really

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews.corn

Arafat had endorsed "peace" only as way to prepare for
more violence aimed at Israel's elimination. Arafat,
Begin said, was "a beast on two legs."
That's one fitting epitaph, but here's another: He
inspired Osama bin Laden.

Once, it drew from the Boston-Edison
doesn't make a bit of difference. They could
neighborhood,
a few blocks to the south.
put the presidents of Harvard, Yale and
That
is
still
a
relatively
affluent area, but
Princeton in charge, and it wouldn't matter.
those families send their children to private
Because what it gets down to is changing
schools or academies. None of them go to
human behavior, making parents become
Durfee.
accountable for the future of their children.
What really shocked me, however, was to
And we just don't know how to do that.
learn
that there is no school library. How can
The family structure in the city has been
you
run
a school without a library, the essen-
GEORGE
shattered. Thirty-five-year-old grandmothers
tial
building
block of learning? Especially
are raising infants. There is a culture of immedi- CANTOR
when
these
students
are unlikely ever to see a
ate gratification, and a reward that won't be real-
Reality
book
at
home.
ized for another 20 years is off the radar.
Check
But it isn't only Durfee. I learned that there
The standard liberal mantra that this amounts
also is no library at Winship, the school I
to blaming the victim isn't much help, either.
attended after Durfee, when my parents moved to a
Victims must become accountable for their actions,
"better" neighborhood.
too, or remain forever victims.
Burnley's time is running out in Detroit. At least,
Repeated studies have shown that it makes no dif-
he
put the schools back on a responsible financial
ference how much money you spend on the schools.
course.
The bloodsuckers who had attached them-
The certain indicator of student performance is the
selves to their pals on the old school board for no-bid
income level of their families. Yet, there are so many
contracts and no-work payoffs were dislodged. Maybe
things missing from these schools.
they won't come back although I wouldn't make book
I heard someone speak recently about the situation
on that.
at Durfee, a school that many in the Jewish commu-
It isn't all bleak. There are pockets of achievements.
nity know well. I went there briefly in the early
Some
schools are run well. But when you have to
1950s when it was a middle school. But since its
make
statements
like that, it obviously isn't
next-door neighbor, Roosevelt, was torn down, it has
enough.
become an elementary school.

e

11/19
2004

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